Page 66 of Cara

She collapses with a startled wheeze as I bend, ensnaring her throat, squeezing with rage.

Her nails dig into my flesh. “Soph?—”

I drag her up, colliding her back against the wall. Leaning in close, I can almost smell the fear seeping through her pores. “I wonder howstupidyou’d have to be to bring me to a place that would teach me how to kill you with my bare hands?”

Others have heard the chaos at the door. Every person here knows my sister. They knew her before they even laid eyes on me. This isn’t the kind of place that will save her. These people have been betrayed. They are running. They watch as I seize my traitor, seething with rage.

“How long? How long has he thought I'm dead?”

The veins of her neck swell under my grasp. “Madrid.”

A year. My eyes expand in disbelief. Ayear.

Her apologetic eyes tremble as she attempts to pry my hands away. “Dominic made a huge scene at your apartment. He… He wanted to destroy him.”

My wrath builds into a scream that makes me cast her at the wall as I turn, frantic. One by one, our audience retreats like a wave pulling back before a tsunami forms. An ominous feeling fills the air, a war that cannot be escaped. “Everything you’ve ever told me is a lie, isn’t it?”

“No, Sophie. Come on. You know I'm stuck in this shit like you!”

I don’t care about excuses. I don’t care about anything but him. “Is he married? Is Xavier even married?”

She doesn’t give me the satisfaction of an answer, but I know. I just know. My lips quiver with outrage. “Youbitch.”

She showed up on my doorstep in Madrid with a plan. For months, I doubted her. After so long, that doubt eased, and I let myself imagine she actually cared.

It’s jarring to know that she doesn’t… that she never did.

“They wanted you to stay here. They knew you wouldn’tgo if you thought he had moved on.” Her tone pitches with desperation. “Listen, they have Nicky. Sophie, you, out of all people, should understand?—”

“I don’t.”

“Cara! Stop!” Isaac’s bellow echoes through the vast space. I hear his heavy boots against the iron stairs. Victoria flinches as I slam the door closed in his face, locking it.

She’s panting heavily, her breath hitching as she speaks. “Don’t… Don’t you want to know why I’m doing this?”

“No.”

In horror, she screams.

She screams as my fists plow her into the wall, pounding her face into the concrete.

I do it until my vision blurs, adrenaline taking over.

I do it until wetness coats my cheeks as she falls to the floor, scrambling to escape me.

My knee slams into her back, forcing her down against the ground, pinning her there. Her hands scramble to push me off as I draw my gun from the holster. She goes still when I flick off the safety, pressing the cold barrel against her skull.

My hands are shaking, training or not. A million images flash through my brain, my subconscious desperately trying to bring me back to the light.

This isn’t who you are.

You wouldn’t kill her in cold blood.

Just as I finally catch a fleeting glimpse of my true self, suffocating darkness obscures the reminder, swallowing any light, any hope I dared to cling to. My nightmares come forth, memories of a prison, ofconstanttorture. Watching Thomas take his last breath. The imprints of fingers bruising my wrists. Saliva clung to my filthy skin. The blood coating my clothes as I lost my baby.

“Don’t do this, Sophie. Please.”

My teeth grind painfully, tears spilling from my eyes. “You were going to sell me to the fuckingdevil!”